Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1887-05-30


THE RIVER FROM WASHINGTON, ID. g.
praise for those who had died upon the
held of battle. Much of which literature
came not from the fact that Athens had
schools of elocution, but because her sol
diers were noble men. -
If ever nation had need of battlefield
eloquence, speech in memory of her dead
troops, this is that nation. For more than
twenty years those tens of thousands who
fell in the war of the secession have been
away from the land they loved. They will
never come back to see it's homes, it's viii
lagos, its cities, its greatness. They suf-
fered and died that we might live in peace
and honor They have all gone into the
perpetual exile of death that disunion
might cease, that slaves might go free,
that the North and South might end a long
animosity in longer friendship, and that
the people oppressed in despotic lands
might look across the sea and perceive the
fact and blessedness of liberty. Great
was the cause for which they fought and
great is the honor beneath which they
sleep.
In the whole history of man there never
marched more intelligent armies than those
which tramped to and fro upon the banks
Of the James river and the Mississippi
The well-read farmers son, the law
yer, the graduate, the editor, the school
master, the author met in the volunteers
camp and quickly learned the steps, the
signals and the whole ceremony of war.
They knew the value of the Republic
which their fathers had founded. They,
with the calmest reason, offered to place
their bodies between their native land and
its ruin. No graves in the classic fields
were ever so great as those now hidden
under our American grass, Out Of them
should spring an eloquence in which should
he inwoven gratitude for such sons and
wisdom for the future, awakened and in
spired by long roll-call Of dead heroes.
Tongues capable of this form Of exalted
speech should tell the great story of
patriotism to that generation which has
come up from childhood to manhood since
the surrender at Richmond
Time should not deaden this annual act of
remembrance, but rather should this in.
terest grow, because each year reveals
more and more the value Of the nation for
which tho war was waged. The spectacle
of free people whose millions of black
citizens are now on the way toward indus
try and education, the coming of "a new
South, the strength ening friendship be-
tween the States which were hostile for
two generations, the great unfolding of
the new Territories into powerful COM
morwealths. the National pride at home
and the National honor abroad make the
tombs of the dead heroes more significant
and sacred to-day than they were when
their clods ware fresh, unadorned by
grass or flowers. Out of these decaying
forms of sons, husbands, fathers, brothers,
are growing flowers grander than any
1T IL. Al
Thence comes our National unity, thence
our perfect liberty. thence the continents
measureless outlook.
1t is sad thought that all this greatness
was to spring up from the bloody field
where noble men were dying But the
fact is as evident as the sadness is great.
Thus comes there battle field eloquence
unlike any other form Of public utterance,
more solemn, more tender, more pathetic.